Letters to a friend
by The Leaf 180
Summary: The horrors of war had taken its toll on Kakashi, he writes to release his fears and doubts. He writes to them, knowing that they will never respond, but it has its own sense of comfort. War has broken his generation, he won't let history repeat itself.


He would always begin his letters,

_Dear Obito, _

_I'm so sorry..._

Sometimes, when he was all alone, or on those rare days off, He would write. He would write letters. Letters for them.

The few who knew about his habit didn't know why he did it. They thought he was a little crazy for doing it. They didn't understand it.

But they had no reason for him to stop, and it wasn't doing any harm. It was just his way of dealing with the grief.

So they let him write. Alone in his apartment, mostly in the morning or sometimes at night, the pencil became an extension of his arm.

The paper became all of his thoughts. The words written on them were from his heart. A heart they didn't know he had.

It's not like he would send these letters. They would be hidden away. In a secret spot that only he knew about. He would sometimes break them out on a rainy day, read through all his past letters, his feelings at the time, his thoughts.

He would only do that sometimes, maybe on the anniversary. But he didn't like looking at what he had already written. It would get him all confused and twisted up inside.

He would get so upset and lonely that he had to put them away. Then he would stare out the window, lost in his thoughts.

Until the sunlight was streaming into his eyes and it would hurt too much, and he was positive that if he spent another minute looking at the sun he would surely go blind. Then he would stand up, stretch his frozen legs and blink a few times.

Then he would open the window a bit to let the stale air out and let the crisp morning breeze flow though his apartment, and he would start making breakfast. He would shuffle around in his refrigerator until he was certain that the eggs had moved because he didn't remember putting them there last time he had used them.

Once he had found the eggs, he would close the window because it was getting a little drafty.

Then he would eat his breakfast and begin his day feeling optimistic, and by the time he came back, he was feeling tired and cranky once more.

* * *

><p>As he wrote, he thought. He thought about what he was going to say and how he was going to put it.<p>

He always began his letters with _I'm sorry_ and then he would continue on with whatever was on his mind. Apologizing was just a habit, he didn't know why he did it, just like he didn't know why he even wrote these letters in the first place, it's not like they were getting these letters anyway.

Most people would have thought that he would write about how he failed them or how he punished himself for it. They though he would write about the day of their deaths or how he felt about it.

They thought he would put what he normally spent his time brooding on paper. But he tended to stay away from those kinds of topics, he didn't like remembering.

They thought his letters would be dark and depressing, but they haven't read them, so they wouldn't know. He wasn't writing his letters for them. He didn't know who he was writing them for, he guessed it was for himself, but he never put that much thought into it.

He didn't know if this was helping him at all, but he didn't care. If writing meant something to do he was glad for it. If there was something Kakashi hated, it was time. He always seemed to have too much of it.

And when he had too much he would spent his time contemplating and daydreaming. His thoughts would travel on one subject to the next. And in the end, he just felt really down and unhappy.

So if he was writing, he wouldn't be thinking too hard. It was a way to pass the time and vent out whatever was bothering him, or what was not bothering him, for the matter.

He would write about his team, the daily mishaps and adventures. But that topic soon evolved after everyone matured and moved on to be their own persona.

Then he would write about how proud he was, of how proud he wasn't.

Because he didn't really teach them anything, except Sasuke, and look where that went.

Sakura was becoming a skillful and strong young kunoichi, and that was due to Tsunade's training, not him.

Naruto was becoming noble and admired by the village, and that was because of Jiraiya, not him.

Sasuke was becoming a revenge crazed murderer, and that was because of him. Well, mostly Orochimaru, but he was the one that taught Sasuke most of what he knew. Like the chidori, Orochimaru just added the curse mark, and then there was a power hungry avenger on the loose.

One of Kakashi many accomplishments, but this was one that he was not too particularly proud of. He would write about his old days in ANBU, the few happy times in his childhood, the day he passed the famous new team seven, the way they were so cute and easy to understand and innocent.

The way they argued just like he used too, and how he wondered if he would ever give the words "camaraderie" some meaning.

He wondered if they would ever understand teamwork or if he would ever get any of his lessons through their thick skulls of theirs.

He wrote about the way he could easily see through them and how they tried to see his face. That was so adorable. Kakashi was smiling on the inside as he pretended to not notice them trying to track him.

But it was just so funny watching there confusion as he easily lost them. He spent the good part of that night summing it up in a letter.

He wrote about Zabuza and Haku.

He wrote about how the chuunin exams were coming up and he was planning on recommending his team for them. Then he wrote about how annoying Iruka had been to try and argue with him.

And so on, all the way up until Naruto going away to train with Jiraiya.

He wrote about how he wasn't sure if Sakura was confident enough to try yet, and if Naruto was always going to be so stubborn, and if Sasuke would ever give up on revenge.

But as time wore on, Sakura became sure of her skills, Naruto was still hell-bent on becoming Hokage, and Sasuke had left to pursue his destiny. And Kakashi, he hadn't changed at all.

He might be a little friendlier, and maybe a little softer and kinder now, but he was still Kakashi.

He wrote about that if Minato sensei could see him now, he would have been proud because Kakashi had finally understood what he had been trying to teach him all along.

He wrote that if Obito was watching, he would have laughed that goofy laugh of his because Kakashi's team was just like them.

He wrote that if his father could see him now, he didn't know what he would say, he didn't know if his father would be proud of disappointed in him.

He wrote that if Rin was watching over him, like she promised she would, she would have leant him a shoulder to lean on and a reassuring smile because he was lonely and he just wanted to break sometimes.

But when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So Kakashi had to stay strong and push through, and later on, he would write about that too.

He would pour out his soul onto paper and his heart would form words. There was a piece of him in every letter, and when you found every part of the puzzle, you had a masterpiece.

That's what you think, and maybe there is someone else in the world who thinks so too.

You could show it to a snotty neighbor and they could look at it and call it ugly.

Or you could show it to a good friend and they would stare at it for a long time and turn in upside down and bring it closer and then eventually they would admit it, they didn't see anything.

Or you could show it to a little kid and they would take one look and tell you it looked just like the monster under their bed.

You could show it to your worst enemy and they would look at you funny and say, "I don't get it…" But what where they really looking at?

They were looking at Kakashi's letters, they were looking into Kakashi. They were seeing him for who he was in his letters and they saw things they didn't want to see.

Or didn't think they'd see.

Or they would know him so well that they wouldn't be seeing anything new.

There was only one person in that category and that was Kakashi himself. So he would write, it calmed him down, and he would never run out of ideas.

And when he did, he'd write about that too.

* * *

><p>Alone in his house, hunched over the desk.<p>

The pencil scribbling furiously and the light flickering in his eyes. His coal black eye steadily follows the words as he tracks what he has done.

The pencil glides across the paper. The lamp stands guard over the man. He writes. His brow furrowed in an unconscious frown.

He pauses. The scowl deepens. The pencil twirls with an expert flick of the hand, and words disappear. He relaxes slightly, and the pencil is in motion once more.

A solitary figure with light glowing and tracing his frame. A picture painted with words. A delicate balance at the mercy of the limits of the mind.

A stroke of a pencil, a damaged heart. Disaster, and dread and despair summed up in a few sentences.

A lash, a streak of black, an empty soul. Burned memories and scarred past plain on paper.

The topic is the nine tailed fox, the mood is dreary, and the time is night.

A letter to Minato.

He leads his pencil gently, the grip loosens, and his pencil gently caresses the bleak, stark paper.

A tale is born.

Here is the canvas and here is the artist.

Here is the notebook and here is the journalist.

Here is the story and here is the author.

Here are the lies and here is the truth.

It is here in the letter and it is here in his eyes.

He sits back in his chair. Head tilted up, eyes closed. His lets the tired murky haze swamp his vision. He gives his mind a rest.

If you could see it, you'd understand. He wasn't crazy; he was just finding a way of dealing with the pain.

Tired lines circle his bleary, dim eyes. His fingers ache, his pencil is dull and flat, lying on the desk. Reaching for the paper like an outstretched hand.

The paper is smudged and marked with characters. The silence is like a blanket, comforting and smothering at the same time.

He listens to the silence, it is almost deafening, it pressures him at all sides and echoes throughout the room. Without the noise.

You can feel it, but you aren't certain if it's really there. An invisible force. The sound of silence. He sighs; it vibrates around the room and batters against the walls.

His mind was whirling with thoughts spiraling into the dead of night. His vision is mixed with memories and his voice seemed to belong to another.

He slides open his eyes into slits and turns to face the window. The fading twilight is glimmering and glazed with white stars. A pale silver drop observes, far away in its own world.

It fades and clear sunlight soon cascades through the window. He squints at the time he wasted. Because the letter is incomplete and he refuses to leave until he finishes his thought.

His eye tuned into the desk. His vision came into focus as he gazed, unmotivated, at the pencil on his desk. He bit his lip inside his mask.

He slowly breaks out of a trance and pushes himself back into a sitting position. His finger find the pencil and he slowly works his way into the same routine and is soon working smoothly like a well-oiled machine once more.

He bends over the desk, apparently unmoved as early clean sunshine filter through the window and washes the room in a honey golden blanket. It gathers him in a warm embrace and he is unresponsive, hugged with warmth.

The shadows grow outside as dawn creeps near. Kakashi moves mechanically, a lone man, sleep deprived and lonely, he writes.

His work speaks with one voice, his art in the form of letters, his heart shaped by destiny.

He had once heard the paper was more patient than man. He dimly tries to recall where he had heard that as he takes his letter to a close.

It must be true, because he didn't know anyone with the patience to hear him out. They would be tired of his story within two minutes. But not the paper, he could confide it in things he would never tell another.

And he would be listened to.

Perhaps he was going a touch mad, he idly thought as he signs the letter. After all, his time was over. He was just an old man who thought he could talk to paper.

He chuckles at the thought, and glances at the clock. He stiffly pulls himself out of the chair and after another sleepless night. He leaves the letter on his desk for him to tuck away into safe keeping later on.

He prepares for his day and casts a regretful glimpse out of the corner of his eye to his unslept bed. This wasn't a good habit to get into... He shrugged at nothing in particular; he didn't need to worry about it right now.

He can make up for it tonight. Deciding that he had wasted enough time already, He sets out on his day. Trudging through the town, he wanders to the meeting spot and he lets his mind travel. He thinks about his next letter.

He would write to Rin. He would write about the village and how it evolved and how everyone has grown up.

He would write about how his time is over and the next generation has surpassed him and everyone he grew up with is gone.

And it's all a thing of the past and the time has come for the next generation to move on because there's nothing more for him to teach.

And how even though their deaths, Obito, Minato, Jiraiya, Asuma, and especially hers sting worse every day and now he's the only one to keep their memory alive because the rest of the world has moved on and found other people to make their life worth living.

And he realizes that his childhood was really a long time ago and his part of the story is over. He remembers it like it was yesterday and in reality years have gone by.

He would write about how she wouldn't recognize the village anymore, because they aren't in a time of war where people are afraid to walk around in their homes, now the flourishing where children run and laugh and play on the streets and everything looks as it should.

He would write about how things are much more complicated and he has a role to play in the village and much is expected of him.

But it is nice to see the children, the future shinobi having a childhood he had never had. To make new friends and enjoy the world and have the love he was deprived from.

To see his new patched up team, no longer children who cared more for crushes than skills, but warriors, with experience and strength.

The new generation has no need for five year old protégées and six year old assassins like he had been.

This generation can grow up and not spend the rest of their life looking over their shoulder, not feel like they are always under attack, just to grow up and live life to the fullest with all its pleasures.

They can be young and foolish and live and learn and love like he was never able to.

They can laugh that deep, full, earnest laugh with meaning and smile that heartwarming, bright, joyful smile from the bottom of their hearts.

They can fight and make up and argue about the smallest of things and take the world as a joke and laugh it off. They can grow without a care in the world, and flirt as teenagers and shine as they get older.

They had no need to bear the blood of their friends and enemies at the tender age of eight, they had no need to take on responsibility in the depths as he had.

They had no need to pursue the urge to protect someone with their life, no life lessons learned to scar you and haunt you. They had no shadows in their eyes and cautiousness in every step.

They had no secrets, they had no fear. And knowing this is enough to make Kakashi honestly smile, for the generation of happiness and not war torn and grim as his had been.

The generation is peaceful and not one of anger. This generation had everything he had grown up without, and he would do anything he could to protect it and make sure history did not make the same mistakes as they had with him.

To make sure this generation can have new life and not evolve within the shadows of the past, to outshine those before them and age to a wise, old age and have no regrets.

Knowing this would make Kakashi happier than anything.

* * *

><p>The day has ended. The missions are accomplished and the day is done. A dark silhouette strolls the streets in barely perceivable peacefulness.<p>

His mind is raging with meaningful thoughts and he is broken with painful memories. He should be anywhere but where he was, but he had spare time and the letter was written. He sighs, it sounds empty in an isolated town.

It is too late for them anyway. He had meant to get some sleep tonight, but the most recent letter uncovered harsh, bitter memories he had wished to remain hidden. He was much to awake.

He needed fresh air, space, he needed to get away from the choking, flashbacks that caused his breathing to become quick and rash and his vision to blur slightly and his sight to come in flashes.

He needed to stop the throbbing headache and the kneading pressure pounding behind his eyes.

He needed somewhere quiet, away from the suffocation and smothering blanket that buried him and wrapped him and strangled him and that feeling like no matter how hard you fought and struggled, it was just going to pull you in deeper.

It was madness, it was the aftermath, and he was drowning in it. He needed to get away. So he took a walk, his breathing wispy and shallow in the frosty night air. It is crisp and it flows around him and gives him relief from the overwhelming nostalgia swamping him.

It causes beads of sweat to recede and his eyes to dull slightly, calming after how wide they had been.

He stifles another sigh, because he had been doing that lately, and it made him sound old and sad. He was most of the time, but he didn't want to sound it. He didn't want anyone to know how bad he was hurting inside.

His mind was whirling and he stumbles, he reaches out to catch himself, and can't help but think of another time as he regains his balance and looks at his hands.

The hands that had been soaked with the blood of friend and foe alike. Staining them and for a moment, it's really there. It's gone in a blink. He controls his breathing and blinks slowly.

He thinks of all the time spent scrubbing these hands, scrubbing them raw and pink because even though it's not there, they can see it, smell it, feel it, taste it. He would scrub harder.

No one notices; only grim sympathy because at a time, they had been doing the same thing. Because they all carry the burden of taking another's life, stared into lifeless eyes and know there's nothing they can do to save them anymore.

They have all seen the horrors of war and it had scarred them, scars from battle and scars on the mind and heart.

Scars that they had told their sons that were the consequences of running with scissors and not watching where you were going.

Scars that said, "I need to be alone right now" scars that caused nightmares to steal peace, and memories to steal any hope or guidance. Because they were all lost, they had all seen the same war and they had all been mortified all the same.

Some were hollowing and alive, at a cost. And others were content and dead, but at a cost of its own. He was one of the many who had seen countless comrades dying before them.

It was inappropriate to use any other word. They could not be seen as friends. War had bent and modified the word friend. His generation had its own kind of "friends".

Friends where people who kept all your insides in place and kept you from bleeding out as you wait for a medic.

Friends where people who decide to save your sorry looking life after you're momentarily frozen after seeing another one of your "friends" being stabbed in the gut.

Friends were people who sat down next to you as you pretended to eat your rations.

Friends where people who jumped in front of the blade meant for you, and you can't even hear their dying wish because now the enemy is attacking you; and you want nothing more than to let it rip you apart but now another new found "friend" is saving you because you're all soldiers fighting the same war.

Those people were considered friends. They don't do it for you, not you personally, they don't know you, and they have up until the next battle to get to know you.

But you have this unspoken code of camaraderie and sense of duty. The cycle runs again, and to say the least, Kakashi had a lot of friends.

He was still incredibly lonely. But they were different friends.

They were friends for a day, friends you never had the time to even learn the name of. They were friends that pull the blade out of your hand and promise it will all be over someday.

And they were friends that are deserters and beg you to come with them, but you know you can't. You are a soldier, stand or die. And you stay because you know that by the next battle you will have another "friend" to replace this one.

And you know that by the next battle, you will be somehow still alive. You were looked upon as skilled, but you think your just plain lucky to be able to get this far.

Even the most skilled shinobi can be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But even the luckiest shinobi knew that instinct can guide you to the right place at the right time.

Day after day of the nightmare each warrior, mother, brother, sister, friend, father, daughter, son, prays for it all to be over and for their loved one to come home to them.

They all dream of the day they can return to their home and put this haunted, bloody past behind them.

* * *

><p>He has reached the training field. It seems frozen in time in the pale ghostly moonlight. It is glossed with dew and shining dully.<p>

He stares at it, on the outskirts of the field, just within the tree line. He had been taking the route his feet had unconsciously lead him to after days of wandering the town. He knew where he was going, but this time, he couldn't, wouldn't let himself.

He couldn't hold himself together again. He couldn't keep his composure and his emotions inside if he saw the names of all his friends again. It was just too much. He wouldn't be able to handle it, not now, not like this.

He would avoid it. He walks out into the moonlight, it encases him and he steps on the grass dyed silver and gleaming with moonlight. He shatters the peaceful scene, but he does not care; he had never been granted peace.

He leans against the post, the one that Naruto and Obito had been tied to, at different times. His eye softens at the memory, the old scene.

That was another word. Old. Old was twisted by war along with friend.

Old was anything belonging in the time gap before the war.

Old wasn't how old you were or how many dawns you have seen in a life time.

Old wasn't measured by wrinkles on your face or how many years you managed to survive as a shinobi. You were old if you could make it out of war in one piece.

Old was measured by the record of battles you had been able to pull yourself through.

Old was anything that had not known the terror of war.

Old was something that had somehow lived through war and was not crazed with grief. That was an accomplishment.

Not mastering a thousand jutsus or taming the sharingon eye of another clan. Not completing mission after mission.

If you can survive a day in the battlefield, you were gifted. He had seen the results; he had known that nothing good would come out of it. It was part of it. The rules of war kill anyone who's not on your side, if they are on your side; make sure they don't get killed.

Both sides responsible for needless deaths. There were too many problems. Neither side knew what they were fighting for. Both sides thought they were winning, both sides were really loosing.

Day after day, one more death, one more broken man, one more shattered dream. All for peace. When really, in such a ruined world, war torn and despairing, one had to ask what peace was?

Was it this? Both sides hurting and family and friends crying in one voice, crying for all that was lost. Was that really peaceful? War just made things worse, war had broken thousands of soldiers in the fields of time, and war had sacrificed fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters to death.

They died for a lost cause. The aftermath of war was never peace. There would always be one more crushed family, one more mourned friend, one more life taken, one more lost cause.

Loneliness to swallow them and hate to guide them. To seek revenge, and open a wound that never heals, all for the sake of peace.

He thought of all the friends he had lost, he missed them terribly, but he had to live. He had to survive through war and tragedy. He had to fight the battles and live to tell about it.

He sighed before he could think about it. He wished there was someone else to do that for him. But some unknown force had chosen him and there was nothing he could do about it.

He looks up. He was back at his apartment. He didn't remember what route he had taken, but he was home again.

That was another word. Home. Where was home? Some say home is where the heart is. But what if years of suffering has torn your heart out? Then you were heartless and homeless.

But on the battlefield, home was where you stopped to rest before and after one of the never ending battles.

Home was where a family was waiting for you.

Home was the eerie dark forest that you and your unit had been forced to set up camp in and wait for reinforcements. You were lucky. You came back.

Home was the hospital room you were assigned too after your chakra level is dangerously low or you have one too many wounds.

Home was where the complete stranger lived and where you apparently lived now too, after your former "Home" got destroyed after being at the wrong end of the village.

Home was where you spent the night after you had nowhere to go.

Home was a word used too freely. Kakashi had no home. He couldn't think of his apartment as a home. That was what it did to you. You were broken, you can't unlearn. He thought of everything as temporary. He thought it was all going to be taken away.

You learn to grow up without a real home, because if you grow too attached to it, it will always be ruined by day break.

You learn to grow up without any true friends. Because you grew up with friends being nothing more than comrades, and you can't let anyone else get closer than that, because you trusted them and that didn't stop them from dying. They would be gone by nightfall.

You learn to grow up and maybe not make it far enough to call yourself old, or to own anything old, or to know anything old. Because old was something you couldn't have. Old was something those around you have been deprived of and if they can't have it, neither can you. You don't deserve to be called old. You wish that you weren't old.

But you are. You made it.

* * *

><p>He always signs his letters,<p>

_Forgive me,_

_Kakashi_


End file.
